


Enthousiasmos

by viceindustrious



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: BDSM, Community: shkinkmeme, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Humiliation, M/M, Nipple Clamps, Power Dynamics, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2011-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'“Your devotion becomes you, Coward,” Blackwood says, his voice cutting cleanly through the room and its echoes, its hundred years of pallid mysticism.' A moment of mastery and surrender between Blackwood and Coward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enthousiasmos

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kink meme in response to a [request](http://sherlockkink.livejournal.com/1302.html?thread=3718934#t3718934) for general bdsm goodness. Can I class this as Melodramatic Late Victorian Porn? A very worshipful/submissive Coward in this one, folks.

Coward kneels outside the world. He exists in a space carved from a few simple facts; the marble hard against his knees and the air cold against his bare skin and the complaints of a body that would too soon make a traitor of him. The muscles in his arms ache and beg for movement, his shoulders are itching to roll and shake away the fatigue that's burning in them, but.

But.

It was his master who placed him thus and so he will not move. It was _his_ lord who pushed him effortlessly to his knees and his god who crossed his wrists high up behind his back and Coward would allow Armageddon first, let the stones of this hall crumble down around his ears, before he moves.

Blackwood's edict is the simplest fact of all and his mind remains fixed, sharp and resolute on this one truth, although the particulars may blur around the edges. It has been some time and he cannot think much past maintaining his position. The strain centers him, reminds him of his place. An all over pain that grows until it becomes large and indistinct and comforting. Lord Blackwood is not here but this invisible caress of his remains. If he were bound it might be easier to forget, but the only thing holding him is his fervent submission to the will of his lord and his own determination to prove himself.

Here, time is measured in the slow rise and fall of his breath and all else is as boundless as the twisting of the incense smoke as it drifts up to the ceiling. Coward can smell it, gum benjamin and myrtle leaves, but his eyes are fixed obediently on the floor. His mind falls into trance even as his body remains rigid and at perfect attention, falling away from his sense of self. Nothing, he thinks, he is nothing, _can be_ nothing. An object, just the same as the regal chair in front of him. An object can only wait to be used.

What a beautiful thought. Here, outside the world, in this space, the looming silhouette of the gallows does not exist. The things he must see and do and orchestrate, the constant precision of the work they are about, are all so much ephemera.

It is to his credit that he doesn't start when he hears footsteps approaching. His shoulders straighten slightly, almost imperceptibly. It's a harder struggle to keep them so when he hears the pleased hum of approval from above his left shoulder.

“Good boy,” Blackwood murmurs, low in his throat, a sound as sweet and dark as the perfumed shadows cloaking the room.

Coward's breath stalls when Blackwood's gloved fingers thread their way into his hair. There is nothing tentative about the touch. It is sure and possessive and _right_ and the skin of his scalp jumps to life, sensitised by just that little contact. It is taking all of his power not to turn his face into his master's palm and kiss each line of destiny there.

This little universe now narrows to the single point of Blackwood's thumb rubbing firmly up and down behind his ear. Then pain flares, sudden and exquisite across his scalp as his head is jerked backward. Coward chokes on air, lips drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of surprise as he fights to maintain his position. His knees hold flat to the floor, hands clenching in spasm but still locked tight behind his back.

Blackwood chuckles and tugs at his hair, leather catching on pomade, forcing Coward's head back until his Adams apple bobs painfully against his throat and next to it, the pulse of his carotid pushes arousal, heavy and thick, through his veins to pool between his legs. His cock, left half hard and neglected between his open knees as he waited, twitches desperately.

“Would you be my sacrifice, Coward?” Blackwood asks and in the next instant there are lips pressed against his throat. “Your neck would fit the blade better than most maidens. So white.”

He presses an angry, open kiss to Coward's neck. Free from the high collar of his dress shirt, Coward's throat is adorned already with a cravat of bruises, an amethyst circlet of fingerprints that gives the lie to Blackwood's words and Blackwood's kiss is hard, full of teeth and appetite, pulling new blood to the surface of his skin.

“Would you?” he asks, again and curls his fingers tighter in Coward's hair.

Coward mouths the word, then;

“Yes,” he chokes out.

A pause, as if Blackwood is assessing the sincerity of his answer. Coward blinks wetly as tears prickle up in the corners of his eyes and clump his lashes together. He can smell Blackwood's cologne, his hair wax, the leather of his coat, but he can't _see_ him. It's maddening.

“Yes,” Blackwood says. “My sacrifice. My adjutant. My fine little pet.”

He releases Coward's hair and steps around him, heels clicking smartly on the floor. Coward can only allow his head to fall back into place and his eyes to fix on the toes of his master's shoes. No matter how much he might want to look up, he has not been given permission.

“And my companion, yes?” Blackwood asks, quiet and slow.

Whether there's compassionate is difficult to gauge, but it's with certain softness that he touches Coward's cheek and gently, gently that he places two fingers under his chin and tips his face upward.

Coward swallows and lets himself be guided. He meets Blackwood's eyes and finally, at last, sags. His perfect composure unraveled. _I love you_ , he thinks, _I love you I love you I love you_.

“Yes,” he whispers.

“And what else?” Blackwood prompts.

Coward winces. It's hard to say it now. Somewhere else he could arch an eyebrow and smile and say what are only words after all but now they're a truth that gets stoppered up in his throat by a tangle of shame and pride he doesn't know how to begin to pick apart.

“Your . . . ” he begins, licks his lips, he is not permitted to look away when he says it. “Your whore.”

His face is burning, but the throb of his cock against his thigh proves that to _lie_ will not be one of his sins tonight. Blackwood's eyes glitter and Coward's stomach clenches with the sight of their absolute authority, the clarity of knowledge that seems to gleam from within as if his master can see down to his very soul. Coward is sure he can, must be intimate with it, for after all – he offered up that self same soul to Henry Blackwood a very long time ago now.

Close already, Blackwood steps a little closer and his hand cups the back of Coward's head, pulls him forward to press his face into the front of his trousers and Coward shivers at the hard, thick line of Blackwood's cock against his cheek, its heat seeping through the fabric. He's forced to bite down on his lip to stop himself from mouthing at the shape of it, from ruining his master's clothes with his eager tongue. He nuzzles instead, knowing it's sluttish and ill-behaved, but too hungry to stop himself.

“Do you deserve this?” Blackwood asks, his tone sharp.

Coward whimpers and forces himself to still. The hand disappears from the back of his head as Blackwood steps back a pace and Coward, breathing heavily, does not look up.

“Beg.”

 _Oh_ , Coward thinks, helplessly and licks his lips again.

“Please,” he says, trying to keep the whine out of his voice, sounding breathless instead. “Please. Master. May I . . . may I suck your cock.”

The blow catches him off guard, Coward's face snaps to the right and he rocks off balance. He almost has one hand to his face before he remembers himself and crosses both wrists behind his back again. It stings, will most probably leave a mark and he's harder than ever. He chances an upward glance, desperate and confused before the answer suddenly comes to him and eyes fall to the floor once more, his body following. He spreads his knees wider and wriggles down so that his forehead touches the cool surface of the marble in a show of utter obeisance.

“Please, sire, may I _earn_ the honour of sucking you.”

“Back up on your knees." 

Coward obeys, a rush of dizziness making his eyes flutter shut. Asphyxiation by power, oiled and lethal, Blackwood's aura seeping into the air and crowding out the oxygen.

Two fingers press at his mouth and Coward's lips part at once. They move past the line of his teeth, onto his tongue and Coward laps around them, makes a small, needy sound and sucks. Blackwood pushes in another finger, then another, spreading them flat and stretching out the corners of his mouth. They move toward the back of his throat and he continues licking as best he can, sucking and struggling not to gag. There's drool running from the sides of his mouth, shining messily on his chin.

“Good boy, Home Secretary,” Blackwood purrs.

Coward flushes, fights the desire to squirm forward and rut against his master's leg like a dog. The flush is one of humiliation, but only on the surface, a thin brittle shell of shame that glows from beneath with pride.

As if reading his mind, Blackwood laughs, dark as treacle. “What would the other Lords think if they could see you now?”

He takes his fingers from Coward's mouth and wipes a shining streak up the side of his face, rubs his thumb across Coward's bottom lip, pressing it against his teeth until it turns red and plump.

“Please,” Coward whispers, attempting to take Blackwood's thumb into his mouth. Ducking his head after it when it's moved away, his teeth and lips still parted, bereft with nothing to suckle. He moans when Blackwood slaps him again, hips bucking upward helplessly.

“Would you like that?” Blackwood asks.

As he is speaking, he withdraws a small, mahogany case from his breast pocket. The wood is polished so it gleams dully, even in the dim light of the room. Coward stares at it with wide, lust darkened eyes, barely comprehending. It looks something like a jewellery box, square and hinged. Blackwood offers it out to him and he takes it mutely.

On his knees before Lord Henry Blackwood, this fine little box in one hand, he stares upward. It is like some obscene rendition of an engagement proposal and the image of the two of them, arranged so, crystallizes in his mind.

Blackwood reaches out and strokes his damp fingers across the line of Coward's collarbone, over the heart that he owns, before his hand drifts downward and circles a nipple with predatory intent. Coward shivers and then gasps as Blackwood takes that flat, sensitive nub between his forefinger and thumb and pinches, hard. The short, straight edges of Henry's nails digging into his tender skin. He does it again. And then again. Teasing around the skin, rubbing the pad of his finger lightly back and forth and then slowly, excruciatingly, squeezing. Moving between left and right until Coward's breath is coming heavy and fast, ribcage expanding as though he's pushing his chest out for more.

“Open the box,” Blackwood says, his voice calm, so unaffected. “Put them on.”

Coward snaps the top of the case open, his teeth clenched tight together. His master is still idly thumbing the hot, sensitised flesh of his nipples and when he looks down at the box he can't help but notice the skin there has turned a darker shade of red. A shade he imagines is in concert with that of his lips and the blood rich ache of his cock, his body thrumming and painting itself up the colours of a whore.

Inside the box, two pieces of jewellery are nestled in a pillow of green velvet. Gold, Henry prefers him in gold, tells him that it brings out the tawny ring around the pupil of his blue eyes.

He picks one of the clamps out of the box and the small sapphire set in the end catches the light, sharp and brilliant. It is as simple and beautiful in its aesthetic as it is simple and cruel in its efficiency and Coward knows exactly how for he has worn something like this before, under his clothes in Parliament. As he holds the thing he notices that there is a tiny engraving on one side. A monogram.

The design is not much different than that of the one Henry used in his youth. Coward remembers how he was, even then, so absolutely contained, so keen in his raptorial focus. He has always been an expert in cultivation, bending circumstances to his will like a gardener forces a sapling to grow straight and he was patient in his seduction of Coward too. So utterly thorough that by the time Coward fell, he fell far and hard beyond any hope of redemption.

Lord Blackwood is a patient man, but never in this regard and Coward wants to be good, wants to do what he has been told. The trembling of his hands has nothing to do with apprehension.

“Thank you,” he says.

He clasps his hands to his breast, overcome with gratitude for the gift. It makes him yearn for more, for a collar, for a brand. Something sweet and simple to tie himself to Henry's name.

“Put them on, pet,” Blackwood repeats and although he is smiling indulgently Coward knows he will pay for the repetition later.

He tentatively brings his fingers up to his nipple, tugging the skin so the clamp will stay. This alone is enough to have the muscles in his thighs clench in anticipation, his breath shaking, whistling between his bared teeth. He expects the springs to be tight, without mercy and he does not want to chew through his lip when the metal bites down on him.

“Eyes on me,” Blackwood says, just as he is about to release the clamp.

Coward's breath stutters and the sweat on his fingers makes him lose his grip on the smooth metal of the clamp. It snaps shut just as his eyes dart upward, meeting Blackwood's gaze at the exact instant he loses sight to everything but the pain. His mouth opens but there's no sound, the cry caught too high and pathetic in the back of his throat to be heard.

“And the other.”

Coward nods, head bobbing up and down, up and down, like this sign of acquiescence will be enough to put the moment off. He fumbles at the other clamp, wiping his fingers on the box's velvet before picking it up and raising it to his other nipple. The sting in the first is still bright and immediate but he pulls at his own flesh again and fixes the clamp in place. It burns, inexorable and _growing_ as sweat drips in a cool line from the nape of his neck down to the small of his back.

“You didn't answer me before,” Blackwood says, turning and picking a crop up from the seat of the chair behind him. “Would you like it if they saw you like this?”

He flicks the end of the crop against one of the clamps. Coward cannot speak. He tips his back and moans.

“I think,” Blackwood says, musing. “After we've disposed of the unbelievers, I'll take you right there. Amidst the corpses of this country's sorry past, with the new world looking on.”

“Yes,” Coward whispers hoarsely.

His cock is glistening wetly at the head, clear, slick fluid beginning to drip toward the floor. Ever since Blackwood touched his mouth he has been battling the urge to roll his hips, a constant, abortive trembling running through his pelvis. He is not permitted to touch himself at all any more, indifferent to time and place and Lord Blackwood has been busy lately. It has been more than a week since he was allowed release.

“Here?” he asks, tapping the crop against Coward's chest again. “Or on that pretty little arse of yours. Or . . . ”

Blackwood smirks and bends down slightly. Coward holds his breath in terrified disbelief as he runs the tongue of the crop along the underside of his cock, through the fluid pooling at tip. His foreskin has rolled back and the head of his cock is delicate and violet and the texture of the leather against his glans is almost too much to bear already.

“Well?” Blackwood asks, bringing the end of the crop to Coward's lips almost absently, where he dutifully licks his own mess from it.

“Whatever pleases you, my lord,” Coward says.

It means everything. The antithesis to the spells and syllables of conjuration laid out in the books of the Order. Simple words that mean the world, that he _means_ from the bottom of his heart and that he knows the weight of too. That Blackwood will take what pleases him and will show no pity either way. In truth, there is no pity deserved. The harder he is beaten the greater his privilege will be to give that much. Like the agonizing weight of the the jewellery on his chest, these things are only so heavy because their medium is pure, unsullied gold.

“All three then?” Blackwood asks.

Coward falters, nods, his hair falling forward across his temple and over his eyes. “I beg of you. Allow . . . allow me to be worthy to re-receive . . . ”

His voice begins to break apart, but Blackwood hushes him before he loses his composure completely. _Not worthy_ , Coward thinks, _weak and filthy and unnatural and-_

“I want you to be silent for me,” Blackwood says. “You _will_ be silent for me.”

Coward finds himself nodding again, the voice in his head obliterated into blessed silence by his master's command.

“Kneel up straight."

Coward does. He draws back his shoulders and pushes out his chest and presents the target that he knows his Lord desires. Apprehension claws at his insides, the fear of failing to obey far, far greater than his fear of the pain. Blackwood has been coaxing the awful thing inside of him that welcomes such pain to uncurl itself and rise to the surface like some strange leviathan. He is teaching him how to embrace it, this glorious, dreadful part of himself that has lived so long submerged, that has left him less than whole and yearning. Just like the world, waiting for its shepherd.

Blackwood adjusts his stance, steps a little to one side. He passes the crop through the air a handful of times, making it sing. At last he touches the length of it across Coward's chest, resting against the twin gold points of the nipple clamps. Coward closes his eyes. Opens them again. Can't decide which will be better. He is close to hyperventilation, he has never been beaten like this before and he knows he must not make a sound.

The crop rushes through the air and lands in a thin, dazzling strip of agony across his chest. Coward almost chokes, almost gags on the scream as he stuffs it back down his throat. Blackwood hit his mark with stunning accuracy. The clamps are not knocked off, although Coward expects to see blood when he looks down. It is almost appalling to see that there is none, only a reddening line.

Blackwood hits him again. There's music in the whip as it cuts the air, music when it joins with the metal of the clamps but not a sound can escape his lips and it makes it so much harder, the pain trapped and resonating inside of him with nowhere to go. His jaw aches, the muscles in his feet are threatening to cramp his toes are curled that tight.

Blackwood strikes him again and again, marking up his chest in bendlets and bands. Coward breathes hard and throws his head back, his hands falling to his sides, fingers stretched out and splayed then balling into fists. He stares at the ceiling, intricate swirls of moulded plaster, ovals and filigree. Solidity and grandeur that they will bring roaring back to the Empire. If his best were worse than this, he could break and cry out and be done with it but he can not and he will not. One more stroke, one more and he thinks he will fail but he does not and the next comes and then the next and he stares at the ceiling and feels _strong_.

The crop stills but Coward remains, head tipped back and panting, eyes shimmering. He may have forgotten how to blink, how to breathe. Slowly his fingers uncurl and he touches the floor uncertainly. Blackwood drops to the floor beside him like a rook coming to roost and lays his hand flat over Coward's chest. The touch is as cool and solid as the marble under his knees.

“So good for me,” Blackwood says, flicking one of the clamps with his fingernail.

And then he is being taken hold of by the jaw and pulled forward into a kiss. Being eaten straight up. This is what people mean when they whisper about vice, Coward thinks, what society fears. There is no civilization in the thrust of Lord Blackwood's tongue, only ravishment.

“ _Anneaux de sein_ ,” Blackwood says quietly, their lips still touching. “There is a gentleman on Bond Street who could ring these for you.”

He tugs at one of the clamps and Coward shivers. He supposes he could guess at the provenance of the clamps themselves at that. The case is quite recognizable. _Garrard's_ are known for their bespoke work and anything can be commissioned provided one has the money, the status. They would be discrete.

But if Lord Blackwood wanted him pierced, there could be no discretion. Would his master take him to this gentleman himself? Would he guide him through the door with one hand on the small of his back? Inform the jeweller just _which_ of his services were required?

“Some ladies wear a chain, you know,” Blackwood says, the curve of his smile savage.

Coward stifles a moan and rubs his face against his lord's shoulder, breathing the scent of him in deep. He would do it, he would wear anything that Lord Blackwood wished him to wear. Once the new dawn breaks, people will not dare to be disgusted. They will seethe with envy for one such as he, favoured above all others.

Blackwood strokes the back of his neck, holding him close, the curl of his fingers there as good as any collar. Then he feels himself being tugged forward. He doesn't resist the pressure of Blackwood's hand, goes easily as he's directed. His face being pushed to the ground even as his master rises from the floor. Coward does not go onto his hands and knees, he knows Lord Blackwood's preference. Instead he lets his weight rest on his shoulders, on the flat plane of his cheekbone, head turned to one side. A position that leaves him vulnerable and exposed. He needs to spread his legs to be able to hold it, but Blackwood insists on them wider still this time, walking behind him and nudging his knees further apart with his foot.

“Make noise for me, Coward,” he says, and raises the crop again.

It does not hurt the same as the last. Coward thinks that if Blackwood whipped him on his chest again then _that_ would not hurt the same either. He groans instead of screams when the crop falls, riding the pain right back into pleasure again. He has the taste of his master in his mouth and his chest is aching, raw, overwhelming friction, nothing but a peeled back mass of nerves. He rocks back into each stroke of the crop as if he were being fucked and Blackwood laughs.

“Whore,” he says, swatting him on the smooth, thin skin at the tops of his thighs.

Coward squirms and arches his back, his knees slip further apart. “Yes, yes,” he gasps. “Yours, your whore, yours.”

Blackwood hits him on the thighs again, at the crease where they meet the swell of his arse. The skin there is almost virginal and Coward whimpers, writhes, his mouth open and slack. Blackwood runs the crop up the inside of one thigh and down the other, taps the full, swollen weight of his balls.

Coward's eyelids, fallen to half-mast, fly open and he pants. “Oh, oh, may I . . . may I . . . ”

“No,” Blackwood cuts him off, stern.

The word alone is almost enough to tip him over the edge and Coward bites down on his tongue, squeezes his eyes shut, forces his body to obey. Quivering, he wails when Blackwood starts to whip him again, his skin a spider web of sensation. Each touch directed to his core and all in concert to bring about his downfall. To have him spilling, untouched on the floor.

“Control yourself, slut. Remember who your master is.”

He lays down a flurry of blows and then Coward hears a noise, the clatter of the crop being flung to the floor. Is he being reprieved from the last punishment? There's no time to wonder about it before he's being pulled up by his hair once more and Blackwood is right there in front of him. Coward can smell Henry's arousal and his own cock pulses in sympathy while his tongue darts out to run across his upper lip.

It was cold before. Before Henry. It was always like that, but now he is warm, clothed in the mark of his master. His skin is humming and he runs his hand along his chest, digs his fingers in and makes them catch at the welts there. If he lets his eyes close a little and stares at the world through the haze of his lashes it looks as if the shadows are spooling out from Blackwood himself. They, diluted and he the monolith at their centre. Coward wets his lips again, over and over until his mouth feels tender. Just another wound.

“I serve at your pleasure,” he sighs, suffused with longing. His head bowed and humble. “Always.”

He does not need to look to know how Blackwood's green eyes will seem almost jet, how beautiful and striking his countenance is in judgement. No wonder people are so quick to believe he is in league with the Devil. Good Christian men know that Satan must be dreadful, but also that the danger lies in his allure and Lord Blackwood is everything that he was ever warned about. What he _feared_ as well until he understood the nature of his truth.

Blackwood steps back and Coward sways after him, chancing an upwards glance, seized by the panicked thought that he may be denied. But his master merely lowers himself with regal grace into the chair behind him and reclines, allowing his legs to fall apart. It _is _a throne. Blackwood makes it so simply by sitting there with his true, grand majesty, what magic power of transformation.__

“Come,” he says, beckoning Coward forward with a crook of his fingers.

Coward crawls across the floor, his movements careful and deliberate. He is keenly aware of how Blackwood is watching him and so how he must . . . must coerce his body into grace. It should be like approaching an altar, but he's already laid himself bare so thoroughly that he may as well scrabble forward like a beggar for if the body was a true mirror of what lay beneath, his hands and knees would be torn to ragged shreds, his fingers would be split; he would need a form as ravaged as his soul, scarred from this journey beyond where the maps of society have laid out their guidelines, following a brighter pole star.

“Your devotion becomes you, Coward,” Blackwood says, his voice cutting cleanly through the room and its echoes, its hundred years of pallid mysticism.

He pushes the hair back from Coward's face with a sweep of his hand, tucks a wayward strand behind his left ear, petting him back into a poor imitation of decency. The gesture sets all the fine, invisible hairs at the nape of Coward's neck on end, balanced on the brink of some great shiver that might leave him shucked of his skin forever. That would leave him unable to ever want for more than to lie curled at Lord Blackwood's feet.

“I believe in the vision,” Coward says suddenly, the words tumbling forth unbidden. “I believe in _you_.”

Startled by how his voice cracks on the last word, making him a boy again, his breath catches and starts and struggles to find its meter. There is no politician's smile here, no studied charm and without his artifice he manages a miracle; that the tilt of his head is demure while he kneels between Blackwood's feet, naked and hard and whip kissed.

“I love you,” he says, gaze flicking upward before darting away just as quick. He turns his cheek against his master's knee, cleaving toward the reprimand he expects for speaking so.

Blackwood's hand stills in his hair and Coward closes his eyes. The beat of his pulse is too hard and too fast and it hurts his heart. Through the silence suddenly stretching its arms around them, the rushing of his blood sounds like thunder.

When he finally gathers the courage to look up again, he falls straight into the trap set in Blackwood's eyes who is _staring_ at him as if he can see _everything_ and everything of Coward's is caught in the snare of that gaze.

He doesn't think he can stand to see what Blackwood sees.

“H-Henry,” he stammers, clinging, frightened, to the name. “Please. Was I good? Was I good enough?”

The corner of Blackwood's mouth curls up in what could be the birth of a smile or a sneer and he presses the scuffed, flat sole of one shoe up against Coward's cock.

“Well,” he says, chuckling indulgently as he grinds his heel against the base of Coward's erection like he's stubbing out a cigarette. “I believe so.”

Coward trembles violently where he's pinned, every nerve screaming for him to move away from this indelicate pressure right where his flesh is fine tuned to the briefest and barest of touches. But that's exactly how Blackwood has him at all times. Where he's wanting and defenceless and he cannot move away. Not without giving up something far greater than he has the ability to give. And he helps in his own mortification, leaning into into the cruel press of Blackwood's sole, hopeful.

“Then may I have the honour, sire?” he pleads.

Blackwood inclines his head briefly, which is thankfully enough. Blessed permission. Coward works Blackwood's trousers undone with an efficiency of movement granted only be much practice.

“Thank you,” he breathes.

It hits him as hard as the very first time. Always. The sight of those dark curls, so, so forbidden, so promising. A honeymoon fear, which is guilt and lust mixed in one. He presses hasty, reverent kisses just above that nest of hair, breathes deeply and groans. Blackwood has not moved his foot and he can't stop himself from rubbing up against it, moving his hands just before he starts grabbing at his master's thighs because it hurts and he can't stop. He wants too badly.

A honeymoon fear, yes, and it still thrills him so. He has committed sins for this man that can never be erased from his soul, acts he only thinks of as sins and not as marks of pride when he wants to remind himself of the paucity of most men's courage. But this was his _primum movens_ , love and . . . and the first man he ever allowed himself to, to _desire_ and his too long cowed mind still stutters over the crime they'd say he was committing. But Henry Blackwood was the first and of course he will be the last. In his heart he may as well have been gartered and wearing white.

He bled like a virgin too, that first time. Henry can be so passionate.

Now he is like stone, impassive as a statue. As hard as one too. Coward only uses his hands for a moment, to free him from his undergarments, and then laces them behind his back as he's been taught. He wouldn't want his hands anyway, clumsy things when his tongue is so much more skilled, so much more covetous.

And he _worships_. Kissing the head of his lord's cock with a slow, lingering respect that leaves his lips gleaming. Drawing off so gently a fine line of saliva and precome hangs between them before he swipes his tongue over his mouth. Blackwood moves his foot upward and kicks him away but Coward takes hold of that shoe and kisses it as well. A vision of another time, a kick that left his jaw bruised and him making excuses for a week, is filed away into irrelevancy as he piously licks the leather to a shine and then works his way back up the v of Blackwood's legs.

His fingers stutter on the delicate weave of Blackwood's trousers, underneath there's skin and muscle and blood. Inside everyone there's blood, and doesn't he know just how much? Less than he thought, it takes less for people to bleed their lives out than seems proper. He presses his face into the crook of Lord Blackwood's thigh and smears his lips across skin, softens his tongue and runs it up a vein in Blackwood's cock. _He_ would have more, Coward thinks, more blood, more vitality. As if Blackwood has taken a little from each of those who died on the altar and here, where he's licking, tasting, he's fuller. Flushed and beautiful.

When Blackwood shifts in the chair and closes two strong, pale hands on either side of his face, Coward lets himself fall, exhales his own will and opens his mouth wide. Blackwood's thumbs rest on either side of his temple, and push down steadily until all he can feel is the wide, heavy length of cock on his tongue. It doesn't hold the sudden violence of a dagger thrust into a victim's breast, but it's the _same_ , it is, this penetration. He half sobs around it, like he's dying and then as his breath is cut off, the back of his throat trying to swallow over and over and over, a dazzling pressure mounts behind his eyes and in his skull and at the unforgiving points of his master's fingers.

Blackwood holds him down until the stars behind his eyes fade and bloom into dark black spots. Leaves him begging with his tongue in convulsive, fluttering movements for an eternity before he's pulled off and gasping. He's allowed a second, maybe a little less and then, lungs still smarting, he's taken down once more.

He does better this time, fighting against the inescapable pull of his master's fingers just to feel the lack of give there, before forcing himself down further than before. For a moment he can't feel anything, he's ahead of Blackwood's grip and choking himself on cock, nose pressed into the the curls of his master's pubic hair. The noises coming from his throat are frantic and muffled and unwholesomely honest, wet, gagged sounds, brazen in their gluttony. Blackwood's hands return and keep him pinned and filled where he is.

“We'll build an empire in fire,” he's saying, from above.

Coward's eyelashes catch on his master's skin, he can't see anything from where's trapped, just flashes of black and rose, skin and sweat and hair and cotton, little pieces of a bigger picture. He doesn't need to be able to see to understand. Blackwood gives him respite to breath and his body _compels_ him to take it, though he wants to say just so, right where he is.

Blackwood holds him by his hair when he tries to swallow him back down again.

“Loyal,” his master says. “They _should_ see. What you really are.”

Coward makes a lost noise and pulls, tugging at his own hair, a sweet burn that spreads along his scalp. His mouth is still hanging open a little and Blackwood taps the side of his jaw and then tugs at his chin so that he opens further.

“Mine,” Blackwood mutters, strips of class peeling away from his voice to reveal something less cultured, more brutal, prowling beneath. He thrusts forward into Coward's mouth.

They could raise a demon like this, surely. The smoke of the incense has too much of ash in it, mixes with the musk of sex and sweat and makes him giddy. Blackwood slowly fucking his mouth, a ritual of power older than any of Solomon's circles. He swallows down the warm, saltiness that leaks from his master's cock. It isn't _like_ communion, it _is_ communion.

Blackwood begins to thrust harder, until it's impossible for Coward to do anything more than take what is given. He comes up off his knees almost, feels a wave inside himself urging him up and it's so, so difficult to stay still and give himself over, willing receptacle though he is. It's this killing itch, dear god he wants to touch himself, just one stroke. His whole body is torturing itself by ramping upwards to some climax tantalizingly out of reach. He clenches and relaxes and makes himself spread his thighs further apart so he doesn't have to bear the proximity of his own body heat.

There's a noise in the background, he feels it as much as he hears it, like the sound made when you tap on the rim of a crystal glass. He's shocked when he realizes it's coming from him, this desperate senseless whine. Shocked that he sounds like that and it makes him gag, distracted. Before he can control himself, Blackwood snorts, displeased and his fingers snarl in Coward's hair. He forces himself past the hiccuping ring of Coward's throat and he chokes again, until tears are streaking his cheeks, until he stops struggling against the need to wail and lets it all go. Everything.

If he was laid down, spread out, eyes shining with the light of reception in Parliament, they could see everything too. But maybe they already do, can smell it on him, sense it deep down. Past polite smiles, do they find something distasteful in shaking his hand? He knows he plays his part too well, too earnestly, supercilious. Some days he wants to let the suggestion of a smirk grow out into a grin, all teeth, and rip apart their condescension. In their old, yellowing books, trimmed with gold leaf and packed with dense, black, script; words like abomination and whore and consort, all mean the same thing. That ink runs together like the bruises pooling on his skin and the flush of desire beneath. Once they control the future, they control the past too.

He feels it when Blackwood starts to get close, there's less chance to breathe and it trembles on the cusp of _too much_. All of a sudden he's panting and gasping around nothing. Blackwood's hand is on his own cock and moving fast and in the brief moment before Coward offers up his tongue and closes his eyes he thinks he sees a lightning flash of-

Contempt? Pity? No. _No_. And what does it matter anyway?

Something in the predatory iron of his master's gaze. What can only be a trick of the light and shadow flickering about them because then he hears the whistle of Blackwood's breath being pulled through clenched teeth and there's the feverish rain of seed falling across his cheekbone, the bridge of his noise, his mouth.

No. It can't be contempt, see how worthy he is? How, how esteemed he must be for his master to give him this? Blackwood swipes his fingers over the beautiful mess of his face and then pushes them into his mouth. Coward blinks his eyes open and looks up at him, beholden, as he sucks them clean. Hollowing his cheeks and curling his tongue to the base of each one gratefully and then again. Until there's nothing left.

“Now, I've a choice for you, Coward,” Blackwood says, settling back with a sigh as Coward laps carefully over his cock before tucking him back into his trousers.

Coward blinks, once, twice. His eyelashes feel tacky with tears, or semen, or sweat. Maybe all three.

“You can touch yourself, come now, if you'd like.”

Lord Blackwood smiles slightly, he can't have missed the way Coward tenses entirely at that announcement. Coward can already feel it, his release, so urgent and only the lightest touch away.

“Or,” Blackwood says.

He stops and leans forward, places a warning finger against Coward's lips before he can surge forward and kiss him. It's not cruel though, there's no chastisement.

“Or,” he repeats, his voice deep and rich, crawling, blazing under Coward's skin. “Go fetch the crop. I'll whip you soft and you can wait. For when I _do_ have you in front of them all. Where you'll come on my cock. Like you deserve.”

Drugged by the taste of his master on his tongue, Coward nods slowly. Outside, London is blanketed in rain, the curtain at the end of an act, behind which the world could end and be remade without a soul noticing. His palms fall flat and heavy on the floor and he turns, hands and knees to crawl to the crop.

“My good boy,” says Blackwood.

Yes, Coward thinks, yours.

And soon, soon the world will join him.


End file.
